{Synopsis} – “You will get lost.
You will be afraid
You will fail
You will fight
You will remember
And without doubt;
You will find your way home.”The Fearless Travelers’ Motto

Twelve-year-old Nell Perkins knows there is magic at work that she can’t yet understand. Her mother has been taken by witches and turned into a bird. Nell must journey to get her mother back, even if it takes her deep into the Wicked Places — the frightening realm where Nightmares resides. There she must break the spell and stop the witches from turning our world into a living nightmare.

{My thoughts} – Nell Perkins is a twelve-year-old girl that has a unique understanding of the world around her. She has an uncanny ability to see things, to see people as they are, instead of as the way everyone around her is able to view them.

In the beginning someone important to Nell is taken and she and her brothers go on a journey to try and rescue and save this person. Their journey begins in the awake world and then moves into the dream world and then back to the awake world.

I really thought at times there was a lot of repeating going on between the characters and the dialogue in which they were saying. It for the most part became annoying to keep reading them repeating each other during the same conversation. I also found it hard to like some of the characters in the book because of that, to me they all came off as annoying and rather mindless.

The story for the most part had an interesting premise. It gave a different point of view as to what might be happening when people dream, as opposed to just dreaming and waking up with no memory – it gave a reason as to why that might be the case.

The story moved slow and fast and seemed clustered and confusing at times, it then seemed like it was crawling at others. I know that the writer was trying to get a lot out in a small amount of space, but I’m wondering if he could have done that better, by writing three different books. This particular book has three parts and I think each part could have easily been turned into their own book and it wouldn’t have seemed so off while reading it.

The last couple of chapters seemed extremely rushed to me. It wasn’t a pleasant reading experience towards the end.

I would happily recommend this books to children 8-12 years. It is a possibility that they might enjoy reading it because of it’s different take on the dream world.

{Quotes I Enjoyed} – {01} – The clouds had become wolves, unrelenting beasts chasing the swans through the sky with silent white paws and cunning noses from which they could not escape.{02} – “You could never forget who you are Nell, and you shouldn’t want to. You are your own person and that person is fantastic.” Rose – Nell’s mother.{03} – “Memory doesn’t just live in your brain, Nell. When your a parent, it fills up your entire body. And that means a mother could never forget her child ever, no matter what.” Rose – Nell’s mother.{04} – “We need to find our mother,” Nell said. Badger nodded, taking in the information. “Some things are better left lost,” Badger said. “Searching can lead to all sorts of dangers.”{05} – Badger regarded the children with steady eyes. Nell imagined he got a lot of information from his eyes. Not just the way things looked but understood the way things were. He was the type of person that looked at something and could not only see what was there but what was missing.{06} – “All nightmares,” Badger explained, “have one thing in common. All of their power comes from the dying side of the night what they call devilartkia, the dark magic of forgetting, confusion, and destruction,” Badger explained.{07} – “Do you have children?”
“No, Absolutely not.”
“Well,” Nell explained slowly and clearly, as if she were speaking to someone who had no idea what he was talking about, “if you did, you’d know this one fact. When your a parent, memory fills up your entire body. It becomes your body. And that means a mother would never forget her child ever. No matter what.”{08} – “The dream, The one dream. The only dream. Because while it feels like we all have our own dreams every night, the truth is we are all in the same dream.”{09} – Badger replied, “Everything on Earth is named for something in the Dreamlands. Everything you have seen, all that has ever been made, was created here first. This is where ideas come from.”{10} – “Listen Nell, You are going to make mistakes. Every traveler does. We’re in the dream. Mistakes, they’re just part of being on the journey. You should welcome them. They are nothing to fear. Every mistake is an opportunity to adjust your approach, to do whatever you are doing again but better.”{11} – “No one cares to think about who people really are anymore, you know? People create a character for themselves every day. They wear a costume and do everything just so they can post pictures, so everyone can agree they are that character. That fake thing. It’s like we’ve all become fast food. We’re easy to identity. You know what your getting. You don’t have to waste time deciding if you like it or if it’s healthy; you just pick the character. We’re all just empty calories. But you get to see the real stuff inside people. You know who people really are. That is kind of awesome.” Max